Antisemitism, Israel, and the Fractured Jewish Consensus
Recently, the Jewish Voters Resource Center conducted a survey to assess the landscape of American Jews six months before the midterm elections. A closer look at some of the questions provides important insights into how Jewish communities understand antisemitism: we are united by a very high level of concern, but that consensus breaks down along age, denominational, and political lines over where threats originate and how to address them.
Concern about Antisemitism by Jewish Denomination
Concern about Antisemitism by Jewish Denomination
Over 90% of American Jewish voters express concern about antisemitism in this country, a figure that has been stable since even before October 7, and one that holds across age, denomination, and political party. Although all groups are concerned, the intensity of that concern is highest among those who identify with one of the three largest Jewish denominations: 81% of Conservative, 73% of Orthodox, and 70% of Reform Jews say they are “very concerned,” compared with only 46% of Jews who selected “unaffiliated” or “other.” (Please note that due to their small sample size in the survey, we should be cautious about over-interpreting the exact figures for the Orthodox population throughout the study. For more information on how the study was conducted, view the Methodology section here.)
Politically, the Jews most concerned about antisemitism are Republicans, with 83% saying they are “very concerned,” compared to 61% of independents and 58% of Democrats.
Concern about Antisemitism by Political Affiliation
Concern about Antisemitism by Political Affiliation
Age cuts a different way. Younger Jews are markedly less intensely concerned — just 46% of those under 35 say they are “very concerned,” compared to 70% of those 65 and over. Like every other group, however, they remain concerned overall (85%).
Concern about Antisemitism by Age
Concern about Antisemitism by Age
The consensus breaks down further when voters are asked about the origin of antisemitic threats. Looked at denominationally, nearly two-thirds of Orthodox Jews think the danger comes from the left (63%), with a significant minority pointing to the right (26%). Reform and unaffiliated Jews look similar to each other: about 50% say the danger is on the right and 30% on the left. Conservative Jews are more ambivalent, with 48% pointing to the left and 27% to the right. Every denomination included sizeable minorities who saw danger from both sides or were unsure.
Source of Antisemitic Danger by Jewish Denomination
Source of Antisemitic Danger by Jewish Denomination
The same divide tracks with political affiliation. Two-thirds of Democrats (66%) said the danger is mostly from the right, while nearly three-quarters of Republicans (74%) said it is primarily from the left. Independents were more divided, with 48% naming the left and 28% the right. Between 11%-16% of respondents in each political group said the danger comes equally from both sides.
Source of Antisemitic Danger by Political Party
Source of Antisemitic Danger by Political Party
Jews are also not unified on whether and how to address antisemitism at the ballot box. Orthodox and Conservative voters say they will weigh antisemitism heavily in their choice for whom to vote this fall. Almost half of Orthodox Jews (48%) and over a third of Conservative Jews (36%) rank antisemitism among their top two voting issues, as opposed to 22% of Reform Jews and just 17% of unaffiliated or other Jews. That same denominational split appears when voters are asked whether they could support a candidate who disagreed with them on antisemitism. Almost a third of Orthodox Jews (32%) and a quarter of Conservative Jews (26%) said they could not vote for a candidate who disagreed with them, compared to 17% of Reform and 19% of unaffiliated Jews.
Antisemitism as a "Top Two" and "Dealbreaker" Issue
Antisemitism as a "Top Two" and "Dealbreaker" Issue
From a political perspective, Democrats are the least likely to treat antisemitism as a major voting issue, with only 14% ranking it among their top two priorities in choosing a candidate. More than half of Republicans (54%) and more than a quarter of independents (28%) did the same.
Antisemitism as top two issue
Antisemitism as top two issue
Conceptually, antisemitism and Israel may be distinct issues, but this survey reveals that in practice they follow similar patterns in the American Jewish community. Almost a third of Orthodox Jews (30%) and a quarter of Conservative Jews (26%) rank Israel among their top two concerns when voting, as opposed to 10% of Reform and 16% of unaffiliated Jews. The divide is even starker when the data is parsed based on political affiliation: just 7% of Democrats name Israel among their top two issues, as opposed to almost a third of Republicans (31%) and a quarter of independents (28%).
Israel as a top two issue
Israel as a top two issue
The survey also reveals similar patterns regarding the status of antisemitism and Israel as “dealbreaker” issues that would prevent them from voting for a candidate even if they agreed with the candidate’s other views. When respondents were asked about which issues would disqualify candidates if they disagreed with them, 20% selected antisemitism as their dealbreaker and 17% selected Israel, the latter of which tied with “the future of democracy.” The survey also sheds more light on how a candidate’s position on Israel would affect vote choice. 13% of Jewish voters overall said they could not support a candidate who was “insufficiently supportive” of Israel, which 4% said that they could not support a candidate who backed “the bad conduct of the Netanyahu government.” For the other 83%, Israel was not considered a dealbreaker issue.
But this holds only for voters over 35. Among Jewish voters under 35 the pattern reverses: just 7% said they could not vote for a candidate insufficiently supportive of Israel, while 11% said they could not vote for one who supported the conduct of the Netanyahu government.
The denominational breakdown follows the same fault line. For Orthodox and Conservative Jews, a dealbreaker means a candidate who is not supportive enough of Israel: 27% of Orthodox and 28% of Conservative Jews cited insufficient support, as opposed to just 2% of each who cited the Netanyahu government’s conduct. Reform Jews lean the same way but slightly less so (10% versus 4%). Among unaffiliated Jews, the direction reverses, with 7% naming support for the Netanyahu government’s bad conduct as their dealbreaker, as opposed to just 5% who cited insufficient support for Israel — though these denominational figures rest on small sub-samples, since the question was asked only of the minority who named a candidate’s position on Israel as a dealbreaker in the first place. In this case, the clear and consistent direction of the split matters more than the precise percentages.
This tracks with political affiliation as well. Israel as a dealbreaker for candidate choice rises sharply from left to right, named by just 9% of Democrats, as opposed to 27% of independents and 28% of Republicans. And the direction follows the same pattern: the insufficient-support dealbreaker is concentrated among Republicans (26%) and independents (21%), as opposed to only 4% of Democrats. Democrats are the group most likely — though still only modestly, at 5% — to name a candidate’s support for the Netanyahu government’s bad conduct as a dealbreaker when voting for a candidate.
Israel as a Dealbreaker Issue
Israel as a Dealbreaker Issue
This survey, though designed to capture voter behavior in advance of the midterms, reveals something deeper about our communities’ beliefs about antisemitism itself. American Jews are nearly unanimous that antisemitism is real and dangerous, but different segments of our community understand the threat in fundamentally different ways. For Orthodox and Conservative Jews, antisemitism is felt as an acute danger from the left, bound up with hostility to Israel and central to how they evaluate public life. For Reform Jews, the threat is also widely felt as acute, but more often located on the right and less likely to function as a political litmus test; among unaffiliated Jews, concern is both less intense and less decisive. What looks like one consensus is, in practice, several overlapping ones that agree on the conceptual problem of “antisemitism” while diverging over its source, its politics, and what taking it seriously requires.
